<h1 id="title">A Lover’s Complaint</h1>



<section class="stanza">
  <p>From off a hill whose concave womb reworded</p>
  <p>A plaintful story from a sist’ring vale,</p>
  <p>My spirits t’ attend this double voice accorded,</p>
  <p>And down I laid to list the sad-tun’d tale,</p>
  <p>Ere long espied a fickle maid full pale</p>
  <p>Tearing of papers, breaking rings a-twain,</p>
  <p>Storming her world with sorrow’s wind and rain.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>Upon her head a platted hive of straw,</p>
  <p>Which fortified her visage from the sun,</p>
  <p>Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw</p>
  <p>The carcass of a beauty spent and done.</p>
  <p>Time had not scythed all that youth begun,</p>
  <p>Nor youth all quit, but spite of heaven’s fell rage,</p>
  <p>Some beauty peep’d through lattice of sear’d age.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne,</p>
  <p>Which on it had conceited characters,</p>
  <p>Laund’ring the silken figures in the brine</p>
  <p>That seasoned woe had pelleted in tears,</p>
  <p>And often reading what contents it bears;</p>
  <p>As often shrieking undistinguish’d woe,</p>
  <p>In clamors of all size, both high and low.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>Sometimes her levell’d eyes their carriage ride,</p>
  <p>As they did batt’ry to the spheres intend;</p>
  <p>Sometime diverted their poor balls are tied</p>
  <p>To th’ orbed earth; sometimes they do extend</p>
  <p>Their view right on; anon their gazes lend</p>
  <p>To every place at once, and no where fix’d,</p>
  <p>The mind and sight distractedly commix’d.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>Her hair, nor loose nor tied in formal plat,</p>
  <p>Proclaim’d in her a careless hand of pride;</p>
  <p>For some untuck’d descended her sheav’d hat,</p>
  <p>Hanging her pale and pined cheek beside;</p>
  <p>Some in her threaden fillet still did bide,</p>
  <p>And true to bondage would not break from thence,</p>
  <p>Though slackly braided in loose negligence.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>A thousand favors from a maund she drew,</p>
  <p>Of amber, crystal, and of beaded jet,</p>
  <p>Which one by one she in a river threw,</p>
  <p>Upon whose weeping margent she was set,</p>
  <p>Like usury applying wet to wet,</p>
  <p>Or monarch’s hands that lets not bounty fall</p>
  <p>Where want cries some, but where excess begs all.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>Of folded schedules had she many a one,</p>
  <p>Which she perus’d, sigh’d, tore, and gave the flood,</p>
  <p>Crack’d many a ring of posied gold and bone,</p>
  <p>Bidding them find their sepulchres in mud,</p>
  <p>Found yet more letters sadly penn’d in blood,</p>
  <p>With sleided silk feat and affectedly</p>
  <p>Enswath’d and seal’d to curious secrecy.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>These often bath’d she in her fluxive eyes,</p>
  <p>And often kiss’d, and often gan to tear;</p>
  <p>Cried, “O false blood, thou register of lies,</p>
  <p>What unapproved witness dost thou bear!</p>
  <p>Ink would have seem’d more black and damned here!”</p>
  <p>This said, in top of rage the lines she rents,</p>
  <p>Big discontent so breaking their contents.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>A reverend man that graz’d his cattle nigh,</p>
  <p>Sometime a blusterer that the ruffle knew</p>
  <p>Of court, of city, and had let go by</p>
  <p>The swiftest hours, observed as they flew,</p>
  <p>Towards this afflicted fancy fastly drew,</p>
  <p>And privileg’d by age desires to know</p>
  <p>In brief the grounds and motives of her woe.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>So slides he down upon his grained bat,</p>
  <p>And comely distant sits he by her side,</p>
  <p>When he again desires her, being sat,</p>
  <p>Her grievance with his hearing to divide:</p>
  <p>If that from him there may be aught applied</p>
  <p>Which may her suffering ecstasy assuage,</p>
  <p>’Tis promis’d in the charity of age.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“Father,” she says, “though in me you behold</p>
  <p>The injury of many a blasting hour,</p>
  <p>Let it not tell your judgment I am old,</p>
  <p>Not age, but sorrow, over me hath power;</p>
  <p>I might as yet have been a spreading flower,</p>
  <p>Fresh to myself, if I had self-applied</p>
  <p>Love to myself, and to no love beside.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“But woe is me, too early I attended</p>
  <p>A youthful suit—it was to gain my grace;</p>
  <p>O, one by nature’s outwards so commended</p>
  <p>That maidens’ eyes stuck over all his face.</p>
  <p>Love lack’d a dwelling and made him her place;</p>
  <p>And when in his fair parts she did abide,</p>
  <p>She was new lodg’d and newly deified.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“His browny locks did hang in crooked curls,</p>
  <p>And every light occasion of the wind</p>
  <p>Upon his lips their silken parcels hurls.</p>
  <p>What’s sweet to do, to do will aptly find:</p>
  <p>Each eye that saw him did enchant the mind,</p>
  <p>For on his visage was in little drawn</p>
  <p>What largeness thinks in Paradise was sawn.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“Small show of man was yet upon his chin,</p>
  <p>His phoenix down began but to appear</p>
  <p>Like unshorn velvet on that termless skin,</p>
  <p>Whose bare outbragg’d the web it seem’d to wear;</p>
  <p>Yet showed his visage by that cost more dear,</p>
  <p>And nice affections wavering stood in doubt</p>
  <p>If best were as it was, or best without.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“His qualities were beauteous as his form,</p>
  <p>For maiden-tongu’d he was, and thereof free;</p>
  <p>Yet if men mov’d him, was he such a storm</p>
  <p>As oft ’twixt May and April is to see,</p>
  <p>When winds breathe sweet, unruly though they be.</p>
  <p>His rudeness so with his authoriz’d youth</p>
  <p>Did livery falseness in a pride of truth.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“Well could he ride, and often men would say,</p>
  <p>‘That horse his mettle from his rider takes;</p>
  <p>Proud of subjection, noble by the sway,</p>
  <p>What rounds, what bounds, what course, what stop he makes!’</p>
  <p>And controversy hence a question takes,</p>
  <p>Whether the horse by him became his deed,</p>
  <p>Or he his manage by th’ well-doing steed.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“But quickly on this side the verdict went:</p>
  <p>His real habitude gave life and grace</p>
  <p>To appertainings and to ornament,</p>
  <p>Accomplish’d in himself, not in his case;</p>
  <p>All aids, themselves made fairer by their place,</p>
  <p>Came for additions, yet their purpos’d trim</p>
  <p>Piec’d not his grace but were all grac’d by him.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“So on the tip of his subduing tongue</p>
  <p>All kind of arguments and question deep,</p>
  <p>All replication prompt and reason strong,</p>
  <p>For his advantage still did wake and sleep.</p>
  <p>To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep,</p>
  <p>He had the dialect and different skill,</p>
  <p>Catching all passions in his craft of will,</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“That he did in the general bosom reign</p>
  <p>Of young, of old, and sexes both enchanted,</p>
  <p>To dwell with him in thoughts, or to remain</p>
  <p>In personal duty, following where he haunted.</p>
  <p>Consents bewitch’d, ere he desire, have granted,</p>
  <p>And dialogu’d for him what he would say,</p>
  <p>Ask’d their own wills and made their wills obey.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“Many there were that did his picture get</p>
  <p>To serve their eyes, and in it put their mind,</p>
  <p>Like fools that in th’ imagination set</p>
  <p>The goodly objects which abroad they find</p>
  <p>Of lands and mansions, theirs in thought assign’d,</p>
  <p>And laboring in more pleasures to bestow them</p>
  <p>Than the true gouty landlord which doth owe them.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“So many have that never touch’d his hand</p>
  <p>Sweetly suppos’d them mistress of his heart.</p>
  <p>My woeful self that did in freedom stand,</p>
  <p>And was my own fee-simple (not in part),</p>
  <p>What with his art in youth and youth in art,</p>
  <p>Threw my affections in his charmed power,</p>
  <p>Reserv’d the stalk and gave him all my flower.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“Yet did I not as some my equals did</p>
  <p>Demand of him, nor being desired yielded;</p>
  <p>Finding myself in honor so forbid,</p>
  <p>With safest distance I mine honor shielded.</p>
  <p>Experience for me many bulwarks builded</p>
  <p>Of proofs new-bleeding which remain’d the foil</p>
  <p>Of this false jewel, and his amorous spoil.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“But ah, who ever shunn’d by precedent</p>
  <p>The destin’d ill she must herself assay,</p>
  <p>Or forc’d examples ’gainst her own content</p>
  <p>To put the by-past perils in her way?</p>
  <p>Counsel may stop a while what will not stay;</p>
  <p>For when we rage, advice is often seen</p>
  <p>By blunting us to make our wits more keen.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“Nor gives it satisfaction to our blood</p>
  <p>That we must curb it upon others’ proof,</p>
  <p>To be forbod the sweets that seems so good</p>
  <p>For fear of harms that preach in our behoof.</p>
  <p>O appetite, from judgment stand aloof!</p>
  <p>The one a palate hath that needs will taste,</p>
  <p>Though Reason weep and cry, ‘It is thy last.’</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“For further I could say this man’s untrue,</p>
  <p>And knew the patterns of his foul beguiling,</p>
  <p>Heard where his plants in others’ orchards grew,</p>
  <p>Saw how deceits were gilded in his smiling,</p>
  <p>Knew vows were ever brokers to defiling,</p>
  <p>Thought characters and words merely but art,</p>
  <p>And bastards of his foul adulterate heart.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“And long upon these terms I held my city,</p>
  <p>Till thus he gan besiege me: ‘Gentle maid,</p>
  <p>Have of my suffering youth some feeling pity</p>
  <p>And be not of my holy vows afraid.</p>
  <p>That’s to ye sworn to none was ever said,</p>
  <p>For feasts of love I have been call’d unto,</p>
  <p>Till now did ne’er invite nor never vow.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“‘All my offenses that abroad you see</p>
  <p>Are errors of the blood, none of the mind;</p>
  <p>Love made them not, with acture they may be,</p>
  <p>Where neither party is nor true nor kind:</p>
  <p>They sought their shame that so their shame did find,</p>
  <p>And so much less of shame in me remains</p>
  <p>By how much of me their reproach contains.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“‘Among the many that mine eyes have seen,</p>
  <p>Not one whose flame my heart so much as warmed,</p>
  <p>Or my affection put to th’ smallest teen,</p>
  <p>Or any of my leisures ever charmed.</p>
  <p>Harm have I done to them but ne’er was harmed,</p>
  <p>Kept hearts in liveries, but mine own was free,</p>
  <p>And reign’d commanding in his monarchy.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“‘Look here what tributes wounded fancies sent me,</p>
  <p>Of pallid pearls and rubies red as blood:</p>
  <p>Figuring that they their passions likewise lent me</p>
  <p>Of grief and blushes, aptly understood</p>
  <p>In bloodless white and the encrimson’d mood,</p>
  <p>Effects of terror and dear modesty,</p>
  <p>Encamp’d in hearts but fighting outwardly.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“‘And lo behold these talents of their hair,</p>
  <p>With twisted metal amorously impleach’d,</p>
  <p>I have receiv’d from many a several fair,</p>
  <p>Their kind acceptance weepingly beseech’d,</p>
  <p>With th’ annexions of fair gems enrich’d,</p>
  <p>And deep-brain’d sonnets that did amplify</p>
  <p>Each stone’s dear nature, worth, and quality.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“‘The diamond? Why, ’twas beautiful and hard,</p>
  <p>Whereto his invis’d properties did tend;</p>
  <p>The deep-green em’rald, in whose fresh regard</p>
  <p>Weak sights their sickly radiance do amend;</p>
  <p>The heaven-hu’d sapphire and the opal blend</p>
  <p>With objects manifold: each several stone,</p>
  <p>With wit well blazon’d, smil’d or made some moan.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“‘Lo all these trophies of affections hot,</p>
  <p>Of pensiv’d and subdu’d desires the tender,</p>
  <p>Nature hath charg’d me that I hoard them not,</p>
  <p>But yield them up where I myself must render:</p>
  <p>That is to you, my origin and ender;</p>
  <p>For these of force must your oblations be,</p>
  <p>Since I their altar, you enpatron me.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“‘O then advance (of yours) that phraseless hand,</p>
  <p>Whose white weighs down the airy scale of praise,</p>
  <p>Take all these similes to your own command,</p>
  <p>Hallowed with sighs that burning lungs did raise;</p>
  <p>What me, your minister, for you obeys,</p>
  <p>Works under you, and to your audit comes</p>
  <p>Their distract parcels in combined sums.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“‘Lo this device was sent me from a nun,</p>
  <p>Or sister sanctified, of holiest note,</p>
  <p>Which late her noble suit in court did shun,</p>
  <p>Whose rarest havings made the blossoms dote,</p>
  <p>For she was sought by spirits of richest coat,</p>
  <p>But kept cold distance, and did thence remove</p>
  <p>To spend her living in eternal love.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“‘But, O my sweet, what labor is’t to leave</p>
  <p>The thing we have not, mast’ring what not strives,</p>
  <p>Playing the place which did no form receive,</p>
  <p>Playing patient sports in unconstrained gyves?</p>
  <p>She that her fame so to herself contrives,</p>
  <p>The scars of battle scapeth by the flight,</p>
  <p>And makes her absence valiant, not her might.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“‘O, pardon me, in that my boast is true:</p>
  <p>The accident which brought me to her eye</p>
  <p>Upon the moment did her force subdue,</p>
  <p>And now she would the caged cloister fly:</p>
  <p>Religious love put out religion’s eye.</p>
  <p>Not to be tempted would she be enur’d,</p>
  <p>And now to tempt all liberty procur’d.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“‘How mighty then you are, O, hear me tell!</p>
  <p>The broken bosoms that to me belong</p>
  <p>Have emptied all their fountains in my well,</p>
  <p>And mine I pour your ocean all among:</p>
  <p>I strong o’er them, and you o’er me being strong,</p>
  <p>Must for your victory us all congest,</p>
  <p>As compound love to physic your cold breast.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“‘My parts had pow’r to charm a sacred nun,</p>
  <p>Who disciplin’d, ay, dieted in grace,</p>
  <p>Believ’d her eyes when they t’ assail begun,</p>
  <p>All vows and consecrations giving place.</p>
  <p>O most potential love! Vow, bond, nor space</p>
  <p>In thee hath neither sting, knot, nor confine,</p>
  <p>For thou art all, and all things else are thine.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“‘When thou impressest, what are precepts worth</p>
  <p>Of stale example? When thou wilt inflame,</p>
  <p>How coldly those impediments stand forth</p>
  <p>Of wealth, of filial fear, law, kindred, fame!</p>
  <p>Love’s arms are peace, ’gainst rule, ’gainst sense, ’gainst shame,</p>
  <p>And sweetens, in the suff’ring pangs it bears,</p>
  <p>The aloes of all forces, shocks, and fears.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“‘Now all these hearts that do on mine depend,</p>
  <p>Feeling it break, with bleeding groans they pine,</p>
  <p>And supplicant their sighs to you extend</p>
  <p>To leave the batt’ry that you make ’gainst mine,</p>
  <p>Lending soft audience to my sweet design,</p>
  <p>And credent soul to that strong-bonded oath</p>
  <p>That shall prefer and undertake my troth.’</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“This said, his wat’ry eyes he did dismount,</p>
  <p>Whose sights till then were levell’d on my face,</p>
  <p>Each cheek a river running from a fount</p>
  <p>With brinish current downward flow’d apace:</p>
  <p>O how the channel to the stream gave grace!</p>
  <p>Who glaz’d with crystal gate the glowing roses</p>
  <p>That flame through water which their hue encloses.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“O father, what a hell of witchcraft lies</p>
  <p>In the small orb of one particular tear!</p>
  <p>But with the inundation of the eyes</p>
  <p>What rocky heart to water will not wear?</p>
  <p>What breast so cold that is not warmed here?</p>
  <p>O cleft effect! Cold modesty, hot wrath,</p>
  <p>Both fire from hence and chill extincture hath.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“For lo his passion, but an art of craft,</p>
  <p>Even there resolv’d my reason into tears,</p>
  <p>There my white stole of chastity I daff’d,</p>
  <p>Shook off my sober guards and civil fears;</p>
  <p>Appear to him as he to me appears,</p>
  <p>All melting, though our drops this diff’rence bore:</p>
  <p>His poison’d me, and mine did him restore.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“In him a plenitude of subtle matter,</p>
  <p>Applied to cautels, all strange forms receives,</p>
  <p>Of burning blushes, or of weeping water,</p>
  <p>Or sounding paleness; and he takes and leaves,</p>
  <p>In either’s aptness as it best deceives,</p>
  <p>To blush at speeches rank, to weep at woes,</p>
  <p>Or to turn white and sound at tragic shows;</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“That not a heart which in his level came</p>
  <p>Could scape the hail of his all-hurting aim,</p>
  <p>Showing fair nature is both kind and tame;</p>
  <p>And veil’d in them did win whom he would maim.</p>
  <p>Against the thing he sought he would exclaim:</p>
  <p>When he most burnt in heart-wish’d luxury,</p>
  <p>He preach’d pure maid, and prais’d cold chastity.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“Thus merely with the garment of a Grace</p>
  <p>The naked and concealed fiend he cover’d,</p>
  <p>That th’ unexperient gave the tempter place,</p>
  <p>Which like a cherubin above them hover’d.</p>
  <p>Who, young and simple, would not be so lover’d?</p>
  <p>Ay me, I fell, and yet do question make</p>
  <p>What I should do again for such a sake.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>“O, that infected moisture of his eye,</p>
  <p>O, that false fire which in his cheek so glowed,</p>
  <p>O, that forc’d thunder from his heart did fly,</p>
  <p>O, that sad breath his spungy lungs bestowed,</p>
  <p>O, all that borrowed motion seeming owed,</p>
  <p>Would yet again betray the fore-betray’d,</p>
  <p>And new pervert a reconciled maid!”</p>
</section>

